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Center for Public Integrity
Public Integrity state court investigation is a Toner Prize finalist
A Center for Public Integrity investigation that revealed an under-the-radar effort pushing state high courts rightward — with far-reaching consequences — is a finalist for a Toner Prize honoring excellence in political reporting. “High Courts, High Stakes” is one of six projects recognized in the journalism contest’s national...
Amid rise in student homelessness, federal funding set to expire
For decades, schools have struggled to identify and support homeless students. Investigations by the Center for Public Integrity and our reporting partners in 2022 and 2023 showed that schools often undercount such students and flout the federal law that promises them equal access to education. Advocates cite meager federal funding...
States ditched an election partnership. Voters will feel the consequences.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Eric Fey is bracing for Election Day snarls because of a decision his state made last year. Missouri pulled out of a collaboration known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps states keep voter rolls accurate — such as flagging when people move. Fey, the Democratic director of elections in St. Louis County, expects delays when people discover at the polls that the address on their voter registration record is incorrect.
When migrant children disappear, many cases remain unsolved
CULPEPER, Virginia — Jessica Mariela Domingo-Méndez skipped breakfast the morning of Jan. 20, 2023, and ran out the front door of her sister’s house to catch the school bus. The 17-year-old never returned home. Sixteen-year-old Horlandina Lopez-Perez left her aunt’s home in the middle of the night...
Why are kids from Guatemala coming to Culpeper?
CULPEPER, Virginia — For years, Angie’s parents resisted her pleas to bring her to the United States. There was no legal path to bring her here from Guatemala, and she was too young to travel by herself. But the pandemic changed everything. Two years ago, the family —...
New data shows why the U.S. needs more immigrants
As the fight over immigration reached peak chaos in the U.S. Senate earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office held a press conference nearby. The director’s briefing about the latest economic forecast seemed disconnected from the political drama playing out a few blocks away. But its analysis was closely linked to immigration policy.
How states can make taxes more equitable
Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns next year. The reason is both simple and complex: Especially at the state level, taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them. A growing number of advocates and policymakers are trying to do something about that.
What will generative AI mean for the racial wealth gap?
Kelcey Gibbons, a doctoral student who studies African Americans in technology and the Black middle class, is not quite sure what she makes of generative artificial intelligence and how it might impact the racial wealth gap. Gibbons anticipates that generative AI will force organizations to rethink which skills matter in...
More tax cuts put states’ revenue at risk
At least a dozen proposals for income tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy residents and big companies are already on the table for state legislatures to consider in 2024 — and more are likely to come. This follows on the heels of 26 states cutting their personal income...
In more places this year, people can vote in their first language
A larger swath of the country will have access to translated ballots this year than in any prior presidential election. Under federal Voting Rights Act requirements, 331 voting areas in 30 states must provide language access to more than 24 million voters with limited English proficiency. That’s a 26% increase in voting areas under the mandate since the 2020 election, driven by a variety of factors, including people turning 18 or moving.
The little-known corner of finance pitching heirs on fast cash
That’s the pushback David Horton got after an article he co-wrote called “Probate Lending” published in a law review journal in 2016. The article described the business practice of offering an estate’s beneficiaries an advance on their expected inheritance. In each deal he analyzed, the heir would get a slice of their inheritance early — say, $14,000 — and the company making the advance would get that amount back plus a good bit more, such as $21,000 total, when the assets of an estate were distributed through probate court.
DEI attacks pose threats to medical training, care
When Andrea Montañez visited her Orlando-area cardiologist two years ago to treat her abnormally fast heart rate, the receptionists and nurses often misgendered her. For a couple of years following her transition, Montañez’s insurance information still listed her deadname and identified her as male. Despite informing the office of her new name and pronouns, clinic staff continued to call her “sir.”
The decades-long fight in a community treated as a dumping ground
Protecting people’s health from environmental hazards, Maricela Mares-Alatorre and her family found out the hard way, is a never-ending fight. She was in high school in the late 1980s when her parents, both farmworkers, organized to help prevent the construction of a toxic waste incinerator in the landfill near Kettleman City, a tiny agricultural community in California’s Central Valley.
Homeless-student investigation honored in data journalism contest
A collaborative Center for Public Integrity investigation into the patchwork safety net for homeless students has been recognized with a special citation in the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Philip Meyer Journalism Award. The contest honors “the best uses of social science research methods in journalism,” often sophisticated and groundbreaking...
More states are pushing for race and ethnicity data equity
Middle Eastern and North African people in Nevada who are often misclassified as white or undercounted by state service providers will have a choice to self-identify for the first time under a new sub-category that more accurately represents them. As of Jan. 1, a new state law requires that all...
Public Integrity wins January Sidney Award for debt collection investigation
A Center for Public Integrity investigation into states’ harsh and often counterproductive collections tactics for unpaid income tax has won the January Sidney Award. The prize is awarded by the Sidney Hillman Foundation to an “outstanding piece of journalism that appeared in the prior month.”. Among the findings:...
Resolutions for a free and fair 2024 election
It’s a big election year with an imposing backdrop: swirling misinformation, changing laws around voting and deep concerns about the health of American democracy. On top of a monumental presidential election, U.S. voters will select 11 governors, 34 U.S. Senators and 82 state supreme court justices, decide dozens of statewide ballot measures and choose literally thousands of state and local officials.
Attacks on tenure leave college professors eyeing the exits
Subscribe on Google | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon. College professors once regarded Wisconsin as one of the safest places to work, with the right to be tenured baked into state law. Then, in 2015, the state removed that right and sent dozens of instructors running toward the exits.
How distrust in government leads to civic engagement
Professor Manuel Teodoro did not set out to write a book about civic engagement and democracy. He was just curious about some roadside water kiosks. In “The Profits of Distrust,” Teodoro and his co-authors, Samantha Zuhlke and David Switzer, explore the relationship between civic engagement and the sale of bottled water or from a kiosk. The researchers point to the growing body of research that finds that violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act are more common in communities with a larger Hispanic and Black populations. They explore those inequities and argue that failing tap water systems in the United States erode trust in government. As a result, the people who can least afford it end up buying expensive bottled water, even if what’s coming out of the tap is safe.
Behind on state income taxes? Here’s what you need to know.
What happens if you don’t have the money to pay your state income tax bill?. As the Center for Public Integrity has investigated the impact of state taxes on economic inequality, we kept hearing how states’ collection practices weighed on lower-income residents. But states typically put fewer specifics on their websites than the IRS does about collection policies, including what options they offer to people in financial hardship.
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